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Do protests work?
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Do protests work?
20 | New Scientist | 22 June 2019
Large crowds protested extradition plans in Hong Kong on 12 June
36 m Number of people who marched against the 2003 invasion of Iraq
ERIK MCGREGOR/GETTY IMAGES
HUNDREDS of thousands of people filled the streets of Hong Kong on 9 June to protest a government plan to allow extraditions to mainland China. The demonstrations have continued regularly since, with seas of protesters surrounding a government building and preventing law-makers from meeting about the proposed law. Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, has suspended the bill, but protesters say this doesn’t go far enough and want the law to be scrapped. As New Scientist went to press, it was unclear if this demand would be met. The approach in Hong Kong is just one of many ways protesters have recently been attempting to challenge the status quo. Tactics range from marches to violent civil disobedience, but it can be difficult to tell what, if any of it, really works when it comes to effecting change. The result can depend on the type of protest. Matthew Feinberg at the University of Toronto and his colleagues have found that peaceful protests like sit-ins and marches can amplify a message and draw new supporters, but that extreme or violent tactics backfire, putting people off from supporting their cause. “The easiest way to become known is to get the news to cover your movement, and the easiest way to do that is by doing something extreme. But it’s a catch-22,” says Feinberg. One way to bring attention to a cause is to disrupt the hum of normal life. In April, climate protesters Extinction Rebellion had success with this method, bringing some transport hubs in central London to a standstill by blocking the streets with people and gluing themselves to trains. The movement quickly gained
ANTHONY KWAN/GETTY IMAGES
People around the world are taking to the streets, but what do mass demonstrations achieve? Chelsea Whyte investigates
Thousands of women celebrated the 2017 Women’s March in New York this January
attention from the press and attracted new supporters, partly thanks to social media. But it also drew criticism from people who felt the inconvenience didn’t justify the cause. In a series of studies, Feinberg and his team delved into the trade-off that protest groups have to make. They presented people with news articles and videos of protests and found that extreme actions – including forming blockades, rioting, damaging property and violence – meant people supported and identified with the protesters less. This was true even if they believed in the group’s goals. This may be because people value actions they perceive as reasonable, and most people identify themselves as reasonable, so extreme protest tactics make it
harder to identify with activists, says Feinberg. However, even protests that aren’t extreme may be perceived as being so by people who disagree with the aims. In another study, Feinberg and his colleagues showed people videos from the 2017 Women’s March. This rallied 500,000 people in Washington DC and 2.5 million more in cities around the world to advocate for civil rights in the wake of Donald Trump’s election. It was largely peaceful, which helped correct the mistaken impression many have that protest is always violent, says Eden Hennessey at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, who worked on the study. “We all saw that it wasn’t people holding Molotov cocktails with bandannas over their face. It was Sharon from down the street,” she says. The team showed people videos from the march that included benign actions like women chanting or high-fiving. They then asked viewers how many people were breaking windows, burning things or engaging in fights. Even though these things weren’t in the videos, nearly 8 per cent of people responded that they had seen such violence – and these people all identified as Trump supporters. “Our data would suggest that, depending on your political views, you’re going to interpret information differently,” says Hennessey. In other words, some people will see what they want to see, if they are sufficiently opposed to the cause. But recruiting more supporters is only one aim for protest movements. Can they change policy too? It is clear that not all protests work. It is estimated that more than 36 million people across the world marched against the 2003
Working hypothesis
More Insight online
Your guide to a rapidly changing world newscientist.com/insight
VICTOR DE SCHWANBERG/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Extinction Rebellion protests have disrupted London in recent months
protests in their districts. Larger protests correlated with higher turnout at subsequent town hall meetings with congressional leaders, while smaller protests lowered the probability of a representative’s vote aligning with protesters’ demands by 8.7 per cent. And every Tea Party protester
“It wasn’t people with Molotov cocktails and bandannas. It was Sharon from down the street” in a district was related to an increase of between seven and 15 Republican voters in the area. The sustained Tea Party protests also led to more media coverage of the movement and its aims to limit government spending, and added members and financial contributions to the movement. It wasn’t fully successful, however. When it came to major national legislation, such as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) healthcare bill that was so vehemently opposed by the Tea Party that the movement’s proponents in Congress shut down the government over it, the protesters didn’t achieve their
goal. The bill became law in March 2010 and still stands today. Veuger says the effects of protest may be more local, or more diffuse. “The ACA passed before the first election in the fall of 2010 in which the Tea Party could have an impact. But they were still successful. Nothing along those lines has passed after the 2010 midterms,” he says. The effects of protest can also hit policy-makers where it hurts: the economy. Daron Acemoglu at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues looked at how the Egyptian stock market was affected by the mass demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Cairo in 2011, which ended with the resignation of president Hosni Mubarak. The team analysed stock returns of 177 firms listed on the Egyptian stock exchange between 2005 and 2013 and found that more protesters in the streets led to lower market valuations for those firms whose shareholders and board members were connected to the National Democratic Party, the party of Mubarak. A turnout of 500,000 protesters in Tahrir Square was correlated with a 0.8 per cent lower valuation in those companies than the firms unaffiliated with members of the political party in power. Economic pressure can affect policy-makers and the same goes for social change. For example, although the Women’s March suffered from not having specific policy goals, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t successful, says Hennessey. After January 2017, the MeToo movement to bring to light and end sexual violence really took hold. “I don’t think the MeToo movement would have gained traction in the same way without it. You need a crack and then the water starts to seep in,” she says. ❚
▲ Tiny bagels Spare a thought for those brunching in the Bronze Age. Archaeologists have found what seem to be 3000-year-old bagels. You’d need a lot – they are just 3 centimetres across. ▲ Space oddity It is one giant leap for DJs. Luca Parmitano is due to perform the first DJ set from space in August from the International Space Station. ▼ Fake CEOs A video of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg speaking with the emotion of a robot has appeared online. Yes, we were surprised it was an AI-generated fake too. ▼ Face control Your face could soon be your passport. But if data breaches occur, like the US one last week, you may need to get a new face … ▼ Blood crystals RIGHT: STUART PITKIN/GETTY; TOP: WUJUN MA, MURDOCH UNIVERSITY
invasion of Iraq, yet it still went ahead. Although the marches rallied people to the cause, they ultimately failed to change the policy the movement opposed. Still, protests do sometimes appear to directly affect policy, as a case study of the Tea Party movement in the US found. In April 2009, there were a series of rallies that began with hundreds of thousands of people gathering in US cities to protest against spending by the Obama administration. That was followed by rallies throughout the following spring and summer targeting local taxes and budgeting decisions. According to Stan Veuger at the American Enterprise Institute, they were successful. He and his colleagues analysed the sizes of these protests and measured related changes in voting patterns and policy change by comparing the way members of Congress voted before and after the protests. They found that members of Congress were more likely to vote conservatively – in line with Tea Party principles – after large
Sorting the week’s supernovae from the absolute zeros
It is a new age for the new age. Healing crystals are having a revival, but mining them is bad news for the planet.
22 June 2019 | New Scientist | 21
Do protests work?
20 | New Scientist | 22 June 2019
Large crowds protested extradition plans in Hong Kong on 12 June
36 m Number of people who marched against the 2003 invasion of Iraq
ERIK MCGREGOR/GETTY IMAGES
HUNDREDS of thousands of people filled the streets of Hong Kong on 9 June to protest a government plan to allow extraditions to mainland China. The demonstrations have continued regularly since, with seas of protesters surrounding a government building and preventing law-makers from meeting about the proposed law. Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, has suspended the bill, but protesters say this doesn’t go far enough and want the law to be scrapped. As New Scientist went to press, it was unclear if this demand would be met. The approach in Hong Kong is just one of many ways protesters have recently been attempting to challenge the status quo. Tactics range from marches to violent civil disobedience, but it can be difficult to tell what, if any of it, really works when it comes to effecting change. The result can depend on the type of protest. Matthew Feinberg at the University of Toronto and his colleagues have found that peaceful protests like sit-ins and marches can amplify a message and draw new supporters, but that extreme or violent tactics backfire, putting people off from supporting their cause. “The easiest way to become known is to get the news to cover your movement, and the easiest way to do that is by doing something extreme. But it’s a catch-22,” says Feinberg. One way to bring attention to a cause is to disrupt the hum of normal life. In April, climate protesters Extinction Rebellion had success with this method, bringing some transport hubs in central London to a standstill by blocking the streets with people and gluing themselves to trains. The movement quickly gained
ANTHONY KWAN/GETTY IMAGES
People around the world are taking to the streets, but what do mass demonstrations achieve? Chelsea Whyte investigates
Thousands of women celebrated the 2017 Women’s March in New York this January
attention from the press and attracted new supporters, partly thanks to social media. But it also drew criticism from people who felt the inconvenience didn’t justify the cause. In a series of studies, Feinberg and his team delved into the trade-off that protest groups have to make. They presented people with news articles and videos of protests and found that extreme actions – including forming blockades, rioting, damaging property and violence – meant people supported and identified with the protesters less. This was true even if they believed in the group’s goals. This may be because people value actions they perceive as reasonable, and most people identify themselves as reasonable, so extreme protest tactics make it
harder to identify with activists, says Feinberg. However, even protests that aren’t extreme may be perceived as being so by people who disagree with the aims. In another study, Feinberg and his colleagues showed people videos from the 2017 Women’s March. This rallied 500,000 people in Washington DC and 2.5 million more in cities around the world to advocate for civil rights in the wake of Donald Trump’s election. It was largely peaceful, which helped correct the mistaken impression many have that protest is always violent, says Eden Hennessey at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, who worked on the study. “We all saw that it wasn’t people holding Molotov cocktails with bandannas over their face. It was Sharon from down the street,” she says. The team showed people videos from the march that included benign actions like women chanting or high-fiving. They then asked viewers how many people were breaking windows, burning things or engaging in fights. Even though these things weren’t in the videos, nearly 8 per cent of people responded that they had seen such violence – and these people all identified as Trump supporters. “Our data would suggest that, depending on your political views, you’re going to interpret information differently,” says Hennessey. In other words, some people will see what they want to see, if they are sufficiently opposed to the cause. But recruiting more supporters is only one aim for protest movements. Can they change policy too? It is clear that not all protests work. It is estimated that more than 36 million people across the world marched against the 2003
Working hypothesis
More Insight online
Your guide to a rapidly changing world newscientist.com/insight
VICTOR DE SCHWANBERG/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Extinction Rebellion protests have disrupted London in recent months
protests in their districts. Larger protests correlated with higher turnout at subsequent town hall meetings with congressional leaders, while smaller protests lowered the probability of a representative’s vote aligning with protesters’ demands by 8.7 per cent. And every Tea Party protester
“It wasn’t people with Molotov cocktails and bandannas. It was Sharon from down the street” in a district was related to an increase of between seven and 15 Republican voters in the area. The sustained Tea Party protests also led to more media coverage of the movement and its aims to limit government spending, and added members and financial contributions to the movement. It wasn’t fully successful, however. When it came to major national legislation, such as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) healthcare bill that was so vehemently opposed by the Tea Party that the movement’s proponents in Congress shut down the government over it, the protesters didn’t achieve their
goal. The bill became law in March 2010 and still stands today. Veuger says the effects of protest may be more local, or more diffuse. “The ACA passed before the first election in the fall of 2010 in which the Tea Party could have an impact. But they were still successful. Nothing along those lines has passed after the 2010 midterms,” he says. The effects of protest can also hit policy-makers where it hurts: the economy. Daron Acemoglu at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues looked at how the Egyptian stock market was affected by the mass demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Cairo in 2011, which ended with the resignation of president Hosni Mubarak. The team analysed stock returns of 177 firms listed on the Egyptian stock exchange between 2005 and 2013 and found that more protesters in the streets led to lower market valuations for those firms whose shareholders and board members were connected to the National Democratic Party, the party of Mubarak. A turnout of 500,000 protesters in Tahrir Square was correlated with a 0.8 per cent lower valuation in those companies than the firms unaffiliated with members of the political party in power. Economic pressure can affect policy-makers and the same goes for social change. For example, although the Women’s March suffered from not having specific policy goals, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t successful, says Hennessey. After January 2017, the MeToo movement to bring to light and end sexual violence really took hold. “I don’t think the MeToo movement would have gained traction in the same way without it. You need a crack and then the water starts to seep in,” she says. ❚
▲ Tiny bagels Spare a thought for those brunching in the Bronze Age. Archaeologists have found what seem to be 3000-year-old bagels. You’d need a lot – they are just 3 centimetres across. ▲ Space oddity It is one giant leap for DJs. Luca Parmitano is due to perform the first DJ set from space in August from the International Space Station. ▼ Fake CEOs A video of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg speaking with the emotion of a robot has appeared online. Yes, we were surprised it was an AI-generated fake too. ▼ Face control Your face could soon be your passport. But if data breaches occur, like the US one last week, you may need to get a new face … ▼ Blood crystals RIGHT: STUART PITKIN/GETTY; TOP: WUJUN MA, MURDOCH UNIVERSITY
invasion of Iraq, yet it still went ahead. Although the marches rallied people to the cause, they ultimately failed to change the policy the movement opposed. Still, protests do sometimes appear to directly affect policy, as a case study of the Tea Party movement in the US found. In April 2009, there were a series of rallies that began with hundreds of thousands of people gathering in US cities to protest against spending by the Obama administration. That was followed by rallies throughout the following spring and summer targeting local taxes and budgeting decisions. According to Stan Veuger at the American Enterprise Institute, they were successful. He and his colleagues analysed the sizes of these protests and measured related changes in voting patterns and policy change by comparing the way members of Congress voted before and after the protests. They found that members of Congress were more likely to vote conservatively – in line with Tea Party principles – after large
Sorting the week’s supernovae from the absolute zeros
It is a new age for the new age. Healing crystals are having a revival, but mining them is bad news for the planet.
22 June 2019 | New Scientist | 21